Multiple Intelligences Action Research

Method


American schools have traditionally favored those students who excel in the linguistic and analytical arenas because these skills are highly valued in our culture. Unfortunately, this traditional approach leaves certain students behind to stumble blindly through an educational system that ignores their unique abilities. This action research study seeks to show that instructional activities that incorporate the multiple intelligences can improve students' attitudes toward learning and students' academic achievement in English class.

by Michele R. Acosta

Procedure

An introductory survey (see Appendix A) consisting of ten statements was administered at the beginning of the literature unit. Statement numbers three, five, six, seven, eight, and ten were designed to determine students' attitudes toward school and toward English class. Statement numbers one, two, and nine were designed to identify preliminary attitudes toward the concepts involved in the multiple intelligences. For each statement students were asked to circle the word or words on the Leikert scale that best described how they felt about the statement. Their choices were: strongly agree, agree, not sure, disagree, or strongly disagree. Students were given approximately five minutes in which to complete the survey and were assured verbally and in writing that their answers would remain anonymous.

At the beginning of the study, students were also asked to write in-class compositions about a poem called "In the Metro" by Mikhail Kvlividze (see Appendix C). These compositions served as analytical writing samples. The directions asked students to explain the comment the poem was making about love, marriage, or relationships and to explain the reasons for their interpretations using textual evidence (Kahn, Walter, & Johannessen, 1984). These compositions were written without any preparation of students and were therefore based completely on students' previously learned knowledge. Students were given 25 minutes in which to write their compositions. They were informed that this assignment was something that they had never been taught before and were asked to do their best.


After the pre-tests were administered, one class period was spent learning about the multiple intelligences.

Four different activities, projects, and assignments based on the multiple intelligences were taught during the course of the study. "The Soldier's Dilemma" scenario (Johannessen, 1997) (see Appendix H) was taught early in the second week of the study as an introduction to the literary movement Realism. The Wilderness Survival Opinionnaire activity (Johannessen, 1994) (see Appendix J) was used for several days at the end of the second week of the study. It then served as the basis for an essay assignment which was due the following week (see Appendix K). The 1920s mini-research project (see Appendix L) was assigned in the third week of the study. One day was spent discussing the assignment, brainstorming ideas, and listening to a brief presentation by the librarian about resources. A second day was spent in the library and a third day was spent working in class on the projects. The presentations took place in the fourth week of the study and took approximately three days to complete. Acting out chapters from The Great Gatsby (see Appendix M) took place in the fifth and sixth weeks of the study. Groups who were assigned chapters one through five presented in week five and groups who were assigned chapters six through nine presented in week six of the study. These activities were designed to improve students' attitudes toward learning by allowing them to use the intelligences with which they were most comfortable and to improve academic achievement by asking them to do activities that would strengthen their weaker intelligences. (See Figure 2 for a complete schedule of instruction.)

At the end of the study a closing survey (see Appendix B) was administered. It consisted of eleven new statements in addition to the same ten statements that were included on the introductory survey. Statement numbers 11 through 20 followed the same format as statement numbers one through ten. For each statement, students were again asked to circle the word or words that best described how they felt about the statement. As before, their choices on the Leikert scale were: strongly agree, agree, not sure, disagree, or strongly disagree. Statement numbers 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 were designed to determine if students believed that the multiple intelligences had helped them learn. Statement numbers 18 and 19 were designed to insure that students understood that the intelligences are not static and that they are not intended to "label" students. The format of statement number 21 was different from the others. Students were given a list of intelligences and were asked to check all of the intelligences in which they would like to improve. This question was designed to reveal how well students understood their own intelligences and if they were aware of the intelligences in which they were both stronger and weaker. Students were given approximately five minutes in which to complete the survey and were assured verbally and in writing that their answers would remain anonymous.

At the end of the study, students were also given the same in-class writing assignment (see Appendix C) that they were given at the beginning of the study. They were once again allowed 25 minutes in which to complete their compositions. They were given no assistance while writing their compositions; therefore, the results were based entirely on what students had learned during the course of the study.

Finally a comparison of second and third quarter grades was used as an additional way to determine if students in the two American Literature classes improved in academic achievement.

Several students were removed from the study either because they introduced uncontrollable variables or because they were absent when one of the analytical writing samples was administered. Three students had been previously identified as having learning disabilities. Three students had been previously diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (one of these three also had a learning disability and a behavior disorder). Two other students had been previously identified as having behavior disorders, and one student was removed from the study because she missed three weeks of school due to a serious injury. One student was removed from the study because she was absent on the day that the first analytical writing sample was administered and two other students were removed from the study because they were absent on the day that the final analytical writing sample was administered. A total of 12 students were removed from the study.

Since the introductory and closing attitude surveys were anonymous, the surveys completed by the students who were removed from the study could not be distinguished from the others. As a result, both the introductory and closing surveys were administered to all 48 students registered for American Literature. Three surveys were removed from the introductory set of surveys because they were incomplete, leaving 45 surveys. Five surveys were removed from the closing set of surveys because they were incomplete, leaving 43 surveys.
The author is a writer, a former English teacher, and the mother of three boys. She spends her time writing and teaching others to write. Visit articles.TheWritingTutor.biz for more articles or TheWritingTutor.biz for other writing and educational resources for young authors, teachers, and parents. Visit writing_editing_service.TheWritingTutor.biz for a description of writing and editing services provided by the author.

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